ENK48? what the fuck is going on here?

showing up on japanese and american sites alike, the news about tsunku’s recent announcement has been abuzz.

source from oricon and translated by tokyograph:

“Producer Tsunku (41) attended an event on Wednesday for enka singers Karen (17) and Akemi Misawa (65). During the event, he revealed that he is thinking of creating a female enka group called ENK48 (read as “enka 48”), though it is not clear how serious he is about the idea.

He stated that he would be fine with assembling a group of 48 female enka singers. In contrast with the strict policies of idol group AKB48 (produced by Yasushi Akimoto), Tsunku declared that his members would have the personal freedom to be in romantic relationships. The group would likely be based in Shinbashi or Kinshicho (areas with large amounts of salarymen), and Tsunku imagined the group performing in a corner of a soba shop (as opposed to AKB48’s theater located in a Don Quijote discount store).

Tsunku has been the mastermind behind Morning Musume and numerous other idol projects. (Karen herself auditioned for Morning Musume but did not pass, and she is currently part of Tsunku’s NICE GIRL Project.) Tsunku also has experience creating songs for many enka artists. Because of the current dominance of AKB48, he has apparently been working on new strategies, and ENK48 is one of the ideas he arrived at.”

it just doesn’t make any sense. he either blurted it out as a mean-spirited joke (and it’d be a really bad joke), or he’s serious (and it’d still be a really bad joke).